Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

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EVENTS

Those D-List Conservative Celebrities

The Worldnetdaily, already home to Chuck Norris, Pat Boone and Victoria Jackson, is positively giddy over quasi-celebrity Rob Schneider coming out as a Republican. One of my Facebook friends asked who Rob Schneider was and I told them it was basically Joe Piscopo 2: Electric Boogaloo. And WND has been keeping a list:

Schneider isn’t alone among Hollywood stars who have leaned right politically.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the next three years of Dancing With the “Stars” casts. 30 years ago, this would be a full season of the Love Boat (and Gopher — Fred Gandy — is already there). And I’m amused that they count Mel Gibson, who doesn’t just “lean right.” He’s a virulently anti-Semitic far-right Catholic bigot.

[…]
It’s not really surprising considering that more Europeans than ever play the US tour […] many Europeans and other international players are put off by the overwhelming number of American PGA Tour players who identify themselves as George Bush-loving Republicans who support the US occupation of Iraq.
[…]
The affable and well-read Australian Geoff Ogilvy, who won the US Open and has lived in Arizona with his Texas wife for four years, says: “A lot of their conservative views (on tour) are way off the map . . . I think George Bush is a bit dangerous. I think the world is scared while he’s in office, (but) there’s less tolerance of diversity (in opinions) over here (and) people have more blind faith in their government.”

Various Europeans have hinted that they have similar views, but say privately they’ll be crucified in American locker-rooms and newspapers if they publicly oppose Bush, his fundamentalist Christian agenda or the Iraq war.
[…]
Perhaps because of his public Christianity and several incidents of less-than-Christ-like behaviour, [Tom] Lehman has developed an unfavourable reputation in some golf circles. John Huggan, the European golf correspondent for Golf Digest, recounts how Lehman confronted him angrily when he wrote about Lehman’s much-criticised behaviour in 1999 at the Ryder Cup outside Boston, when he led the ghastly American charge of players across the 17th green following Justin Leonard’s miraculous putt.

“How dare you,” Lehman told Huggan. “How dare you sum up my whole character on the basis of that one incident.”

Huggan replied that it was the only negative story he had ever written about Lehman, among many flattering ones, and that his whining was unprofessional. To which Lehman said, “Well, **** you then,” and marched off.

It’s not surprising that big stars lean to the right- when you make a million dollars or so for a movie, you tend to want low taxes for the rich, and not care about the poor so much. The D-listers, on the other hand…

There is a difference between “leaning right” and being batshit crazy. Drew is not crazy. Willis isn’t either. And neither is Geller. And I take issue with calling Willis and Eastwood “d-list”. They are both still A-list and highly bankable Stars. The rest of that list? Meh – not so much.

@ 5, very much yes. Several of those celebrities have in fact stumped for Democratic candidates but have also made public statements in favour of small government/supporting the troops. Of course, those two things are things that Democrats actually do while Republicans claim they do them, but what are facts worth, really?

In short, he said he kinda liked Bush one time, after Kanye made the infamous “George Bush doesn’t care about black people”, but he has confessed he knows almost nothing about politics, and has generally spoken positively of Democrats in recent years. “Lean right” because one time he said he probably mighta sorta kind thought about voting for Dubya? Please.

Actually two of the biggest names on their list have specifically stated that they aren’t Republicans. Bruce Willis has flat out stated that he is not a Republican and has at times stated he is a Democrat. Kurt Russell stated that, while he was raised a Republican, he considers there to be little difference between the two parties and considers himself a Libertarian.

Here’s my question: is this like back in my old Churchy Joe days when we used to take any celebrity who said anything indicating they might actually believe in god and say they were part of the tribe?

Yes.

A quick spot check reveals that they are including everyone from bona fide conservative activists, to people who are ambivalent to politics but are nominally Republican, to people who are clearly fairly liberal but said something nice about a Republican once.

Such a misleading list. Most of them are the kind of republicans WND would attack for not being conservative enough (or at all). Some aren’t even republicans. Not that anyone should care what people think just because they’re famous.

Hollywood is a wasteland full of dumb, vain celebrities professing anti-Christian, anti-Family, anti-American values, ignorantly professing and supporting daft ideas that shouldn’t see the light of day.
And also here’s a list of Hollywood celebrities that agree with us.”

Hell, Eastwood is probably too liberal for the WND crowd. Not that that’s hard. He certainly wouldn’t make the WND readers who drool over the Ten Commandments happy, since he’s pretty much ignored the one that states “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”

eric“@29: when Democrats sin, it means they are dirty immoral sinners. When Republicans sin, it means the Democrats around them are dirty immoral sinners.”
And also Republicans do it because they love America too much to not put their dicks in things.

It is my information that James Woods is a Libertarian (queue Raging Bee to tell us that there is no difference between Libertarians and teabaggers). By the way, Woods is probably the smartest guy in Hollywood; he is alleged to have an IQ of 180 and was awarded a full scholarship to MIT when he graduated from high school thereby making would be MITer Don Williams drool in envy.

So, they list a bunch of batshit crazy fundies, some dead people, an old guy that talks to chairs, then flesh it out with a load of people that lead so slightly right that you might as well call then centrists…and they fucking forgot Schwarzenegger. Maybe he was too much of a danged dirty foreigner.

They forgot Ted Bundy, who worked in a Republican campaign and was assistant to the chairman of the Washington Republican Party.

Also, Charlie Manson was a virulent racist, so that would put him in the R camp.
Sadly, when asked about the rumors, Manson said that Republicans, like Scientologists, were just too damn crazy for him.

I don’t understand why Ed goes out of his way to be a jerk to actors sometimes. They are just working people like anybody else, even if they are vastly overpaid for their contribution. Their success ebbs and flows with the times. That’s just life. It’s not (usually) their fault, it’s just that whatever project made them famous ends and they sometimes flounder in search of new projects. And there is no shame on being on Dancing with the Stars.

Anyway, as mentioned plenty of those stars are still working away and even headlining movies. Although as noted most of these folks would NOT be comfortable at WND. That would require Schneider levels of ignorance:

He described the birth of his daughter and his resentment at being told that California law requires he vaccinate his baby for Hepatitis B.

“That is spread by sexual contact. We weren’t too worried about that happening to a baby, but we were told, ‘Too bad, that’s the law.’”

Yeah… No. Hepatitis B is one of the most common diseases on the planet. It can’t be spread through casual contact but it is extremely virulent and it only takes a drop of blood to risk infection. Vaccinations are one of the reasons it’s not as prevalent in this country as it is in others, and we would like to keep it that way.

OK. I’m a pretty far-left fellow myself, even by Canadian standards. But I can’t see the point of caring whether someone is a Republican or a Democrat, or in the world-standard use of the term, `liberal’ or `conservative’. (The U.S. meaning of `liberal’ as `someone who eats babies’, is nonstandard elsewhare.) We advance as a species by proposing solutions to problems, and through argument and dispute, one hopes, we choose which policies we will follow (this is called `dialectic’). The world would be a poorer place if everybody agreed with my ideology (or with anyone else’s).

The real distinction is not between liberal and conservative (in either the U.S. or world meanings), but between sane and nutter. Any list proposed by the WND is, by definition, produced by nutters, and therefore probably is nothing more than a random collection of names.

There is no logic in trying to explain anything to a liberal absolutely nothing you waste precious time and you could be endanger they not only don’t except what you say . But they will not allow you to continue to say it even if it’s the truth they will not answer your questions because they think you are trying to trick them into say the truth, as though they are from another world.

Nicky – “But they will not allow you to continue to say it even if it’s the truth…..”

Wouldn’t you love to say to this person:
‘Perhaps liberals keep interrupting you in order to give you time to breathe. Ever think of that, numbnuts?’

(The spartan use of random full-stops with the occasional comma, along with the cute word confusion certainly makes this a little gem, but I did miss the usual heavy random punctuation/capitalisation, disordered/incoherent thought patterns and phonetic spelling].

I don’t understand why Ed goes out of his way to be a jerk to actors sometimes. They are just working people like anybody else…

If they’re “like anybody else,” then why should we NOT make fun of them when they act like idiots?

Of course, if Ed really wanted to get to the root of a problem, he could talk about the political leanings of directors, producers, and the people who choose which movies to fund and which not to fund. Those are the people whose political opinions really have an effect on the rest of us.